I will be very brief with this post, as I feel that such a thing as a person’s ability to exercise his/her own religion free of persecution and prejudice should not be subject to discussion in a country like Canada: it should be a given. I am not a religious individual; I have not worn any religious identifiers for years, nor have I actively exercised any religion during my adult years. The Quebec government’s recently proposed charter of values (please note I am spelling this in lower case letters) makes an excessively far reaching intrusion into people’s own sense of self, in a society where cultural and national dualities have become entrenched in an increasingly multicultural context.

I have lived in Quebec for almost seven years, and have never felt it offensive or even relevant for my service-seeking endeavours, if a public servant wears something that identifies him/her as member of a religious institution. Honestly, and I believe many Quebecers would agree with me, I have a bigger issue with rudeness, elevated voices and the false sense of entitlement with which many public employees tend to provide services, than with any symbol they may have around their bodies.

In social media, I have bumped into numerous negative comments from people in English Canada on racism in Quebec. Individuals outside of Quebec should make a clear distinction between a society, and the level of representation its government can say exercises upon it. One should not forget that in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois government was elected with a 31.95% of the vote, making its representational power dubious. I can say with every bit of conviction I am able to muster, that this government does not represent the Quebec I have come to love, respect and defend. The values in this outdated and exclusive charter are not my own.

As I said before, I have not worn any religious identifiers for years. But after yesterday’s announcement of this charter, something tempts me to look for my mother’s cross and start wearing it again, not because I have become more religious, but out of solidarity for those who cannot find a place for themselves under the policies of this government.

In thinking about the seemingly unrelated coups d’état in Egypt, Mali and Honduras, it is possible to discern a thin thread of commonality that ties these cases together, despite of the obvious differences between them. In these cases, the international community adopted a policy that put national sovereignty ahead of democratic stability and human rights, with devastating outcomes for the inhabitants of these countries. The on-going crisis in Egypt is but a symptom of the open scar left by the international community’s adoption of a non-intervention policy at the time of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in 2011. Prior to the elections of 2012, the Egyptian electorate and political groups had not partaken in a real democratic exercise, and there was not enough time or resources to prepare these actors for a proper electoral process. In this instance the international community could have played a key role in delivering training programmes and providing logistical support to solidify the bases of Egypt’s long-term political security.

The takeover of al-Qaeda militant groups in northern Mali in late 2012 is also a by-product of the international community’s unwillingness to act in the face of political unrest. After the March 2012 deposition of Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure, there were already strong signs that the state of democracy in Mali was weak, but this event was met with a lukewarm reaction from the international community. As a result, Mali continued its gradual political descent towards weak governance, Tuareg separatist offensives, a second coup in December 2012, and the subsequent occupation of the northern part of Mali, an area of land equal in size to France. It was not until 2013 that a task force commanded by France entered Malian territory to retake al-Qaeda-occupied lands, albeit with no serious intent to help stabilize the already severe political situation in the country.

International apathy was also present when Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was dismissed from his presidential post in 2009. While condemnations and aid freezes were put in place during Roberto Micheletti’s interim presidential tenure after Zelaya’s dismissal, no international resources were allocated to ensure that democracy was properly restored in Honduras. Even though fair elections took place in November 2009, democratic life in Honduras still remains in a dubious state. While journalists’ murders remain largely unresolved and drug-related crime continues to ravage the country, there is no real commitment on behalf of the international community to help bolster the government’s ability to thwart this violence.

The conventional idea of an intervention is often regarded as the use of a military force to influence change at the upper-most levels of government. The problem with this idea is that change only targets the holders of political power, and does not seek wider institutional reform, which in many conflict situations, is much needed. In order to deal with more profound changes, it is necessary to develop wider consensus-building mechanisms, and work with local civil society groups and community leaders. This will ensure that the bases upon which democratic governance structures are built remain strong in the long-term. Due to the ethical and sovereignty-related concerns associated with an intervention, many governments and international organizations categorically reject its very idea, and prefer the opposite alternative: inaction. It is therefore necessary to conceive and institutionalize new intervention mechanisms that will facilitate democratic stability and foster stronger political and social institutions.

The U.S State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs recently released new travel warnings for American citizens. Among these warnings, I found particularly striking that the Bureau found it wise to divert American citizens from going to places like Israel and Honduras. On one hand, it is understandable that these warnings be issued, given that Israel is located in an increasingly volatile geographical area, and that Honduras’ crime rates continue to be included amongst the highest in the world. On the other, I find it particularly inharmonious to discourage citizens (among which one may find numerous business owners and investors) from going to countries with whom the U.S has signed free trade agreements.

A key component of a fair free trade agreement is the unhindered transit of goods between signatory states. While procedural considerations could produce problems on the flow of goods between signatory countries, it is not an overt action by any one state to intentionally obstruct said flow. However, if any given signatory blatantly discourages its citizens from setting foot in another signatory country’s territory, this directly affects the degree to which the former’s citizens will be capable of moving goods, hence resulting in an infringement of the free trade principle.

At the time when Israel and Honduras’ free trade agreements were signed, their individual and regional security situations were not so different than they are now, which should have informed American decision-makers’ policy surrounding the establishment of free trade regimes with these countries. If security concerns alone were sufficient enough reasons to discourage American citizens from traveling to these countries in 2013, it begs the question of why were security issues not accounted for at the time of conceiving ideas of free trade with them?

The security situation in both these examples is doubtlessly worrisome, and it would be most unwise to underestimate this reality. It is however deplorable that the flow of products from the U.S to countries such as Israel and Honduras under a free trade framework is hindered by the prevalence of crime, terrorism and violence in general.

After a bitter battle with cancer, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died yesterday in a military hospital in Caracas. I have been reading several reactions from world leaders and members of society groups in the US and Canada, and it seems to me that fervor dominates Chavez’s passing. My views on Hugo Chavez’s legacy are very mixed.

Chavez epitomized the ideal behind the “Caudillo” figure, which I personally find detrimental to the spread of an individual’s ideas. This is especially true in Latin America, where political culture inherited by the Cold War tends to be reactionary by nature. If anything can be said about Chavez’s rise to power, is that his first election was a call by the Venezuelan people for change, albeit delivered by the opposite side of the political spectrum. But with Chavez gone, where will reactionary politics lead Venezuela? While many around the world rejoice, uncertainty looms.

I can understand the reasons why millions loved (and continue to love) Chavez, but not all of his policies were wise. In the area of peace, Chavez left a horribly polarized continent. Chavez’s hero, Simon Bolivar, believed in independence and unity for the peoples of Latin America based on our ancestral aboriginal and colonial past. While Chavez sought closer collaboration with other Latin American countries, he did so along profound ideological lines, leaving the region’s rich common past in second place. Colombia has never been any less Latin American than Bolivia, but its leaders have been at odds with Chavez’s ideas, and this has triggered severe divisions between both governments. There should not have been a reason to exclude countries in the region based on the ideological nature of their governments; dialogue and cooperation should have been at the core of these relations.

Irrespective of an individual’s political lineages, one cannot debate Chavez’s contribution to Latin America’s claim of ownership over its own political and social activities. Before Chavez became a political actor in the region, the only real example that Latin America had to support the belief that its own fate could be decided on its own was Cuba, and perhaps the governments of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile. In his 14 years in office, Chavez was able to empower an entire region, and make it believe that its destiny and interests could fearlessly diverge from those of the US. The prominence of groups such as ALBA and Mercosur bear witness of the region’s economic potential and ability to cooperate without outside interference. If there is a legacy left by Hugo Chavez in my mind is that he reminded Latin America that its land is strong and its men and women capable of bringing themselves up.

As a final note, I will not comment on his administration’s “dubious” human rights record, because any transparent and objective analyst would have to juxtapose Chavez’s alleged human rights violations with those of other governments. This task alone would take too much time and space, and would inevitably lead to cyclical analyses on colonial quests, fights against terrorism and other acts that could also be considered as human rights violations.